


Sensations, melancholic

by winterysomnium



Series: Zombie apocalypse AU [4]
Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Blood, Cannibalism, Gore, M/M, Violence, zombie apocalypse AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-19 00:38:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4726217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterysomnium/pseuds/winterysomnium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s good and Jason needs him, for now. Needs him.Like a car needs gasoline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sensations, melancholic

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to wittyredrobin, whose birthday it is today! Hope it’s a good one! Also hope that it’s alright for me to post this AU as a present of sorts. Also the line I asked about was included but I ended up changing it to the meaning I was looking for, hope it’s correct now, if not I will change it. Hope you will like the story!

“Do you ever feel like time got infected and died and got resurrected, along with us?” Tim asks as Jason disconnects another neck shoulders jaws (bones), as vivid fingers go limp, as teeth try harder, as Jason runs iron through memories through ground, as all that is them stutters, stills. He crawls into the car, hands just skin and bones, weakening denim on his knees; Jason wants to tell him: don’t be dumb. Be the smartest you can. Wants to say: we’ll get you gloves, proper clothes. You have to last.

(He doesn’t say, neither.)

“And now it’s this jumpy, angry mess of being slow and draining and suddenly so fast you think it’s trying to eat you alive too?” He glances at Jason, at the road dotted in their guillotine guilt, Jason’s gloves thick, stiff, an epilogue. There’s a can, and another, of dirty gasoline, full and flammable but there’s better use for those, for them. It burns brighter, _better_ within the structured insides of cars, burns the worst within their windows, the doors, within the mouths and muscles of the trapped, of the unsafe and the fire would bring the free too, the moths, they’d wander and they’d burn and they burn with hunger already, anyway. (They think.)

Tim picks at a buckle, thick, pulls and it whines, resembles old bones, melancholic sounds as Jason covers the blankest, heaviest of looks, with papery thin cloth that will thin out even more with the first, cold, heavier rains, that won’t hide a single horrifying thing about their looks, about any of them.

(They’re out of options.)

“Time was always relative. It’s the stakes,” Jason answers, rests against the sun-warm hip of the car and guards him, guards Tim, left unfocused, left vulnerable, to the wandering (to the seeking) as he dips his attention to the things locked underneath the buckle, as he digs through someone’s runaway life.

“You’re not waiting at the post office anymore. You’re hiding under a leaking car or a dirty bed or are cramped in a closet somewhere hoping they won’t drag you out or bite your feet off,” he says, more. He could (wants to) light a smoke, wants to prove it still dries out his mouth, warms his throat, wants to prove there’s still something in him that can die, that can be killed. Instead, he watches the hollow, phantom buzz of the grass, of the field of flowers. Instead, he envies Tim.

“We’re the ones different.” He stops and Tim does, too, chafes his jeans more as he scoots, crawls back to the open seat, sits, knees in line with Jason’s hips, in line with the car’s shoulders, places his feet on the door’s nest and he looks like someone Jason would meet at class every day, someone he’d laugh easy with, someone he’d have tense, angry fights with and someone he’d think about being alive with but Tim’s – they’re not. They won’t be. (They can’t.)

Jason inches away.

(The cloth moves and –)

Jason’s more _them_ , than him. A lucky – bad – _salvageable_ – mistake, a sample, willing, a petri dish, poisonous.

He’s not even human anymore. (Is he?)

He’s _neither_ and it’s why.

That’s why he needs Tim.          

Tim who’s – who’s good with locks, good with scavenging, good with eating mushrooms and fighting fierce and with people, dead or not quite.

He’s _good_ and Jason needs him, for now. Needs him.

Like a car needs gasoline.

Like a car needs someone to drive and someone to hold the map and someone to says _hey, you’re not dead yet_. _You don’t dream about ripping out your Dad’s throat_. _Go on_. and he needs him – he needs _someone_ he can trust. Anyone. That’s it; that’s that.

Anyone could do.

But lately anyone hasn’t been quite anyone _but_ him, not Jason, not his family, nor any of the others, stuttering through or hunting for nothing but adrenaline (and cruel, cruel fun) or plain aimless, more aimless than the ones awake, the ones hungry, the ones wandering through.

Anyone has been this one guy and Jason feels so dry, so flammable, so –  

“Might be.” Tim nods, lets out a secret, half born laugh, sends it to his ribs. “Man, did I hate waiting at the post office,” he says and Jason snorts, loud, smiling, can’t help the push, the rush of it, the fleeting mirth it carries, the wavering echo, quiet and warm, thorough, something he’s forgotten about.

(It’s as if something blooms, right through him.)

He swallows, swallows it down.

“Did you find anything?” he asks and he wants to move on, from here, from Tim, from anything growing in him, old new bad good. He has to stay, to hold on, to not change, to not give in, to not become blood hunger bites rot _blood_. So all he can do is – move (on).

“I found a rare Pokemon card,” Tim answers, with this proud, mischievous smirk, holds it between his fingers, like he expects Jason to marvel, to be impressed. “Otherwise nothing we can use. We should go.” He shrugs, less satisfied, pockets the card and stands up next to Jason, nearly as tall, tests the asphalt with the tip of his shoe.

“How are you even alive,” Jason mutters, marvels, yes, but at Tim as a whole and there’s disbelief, there’s something amused, there’s – enjoyment, nearly. Nearly – something fond.

Jason tries to shake them out of his head, along with his words, along with the mood, _content_ , that’s trying to settle in his bones, along with the soft soft gentleness in his fingers – he stops.

He just needs Tim like a car needs gasoline.

And gasoline always runs out.

(They head to California, right after.)


End file.
